Film Photography and some other stuff, you'll see

back to cameras and films

back to cameras and films

Olympus Trip 35

Now, believe it or not, I feel this is the best camera I own. Not because it gives me the sharpest negs (though it pretty much does), or offers sophisticated solutions to tricky situations, but it does give me the best photographs I take - because it's the camera that allows me to record what I see. What I mean by this is that there is almost nothing between a situation I see and pressing the shutter. There's no focusing, no metering, just framing if there's time or, often, just point and shoot. And then, when I come to working with the images all the detail's there, the exposure's spot on - it's almost too easy and feels like cheating. I have one Trip for colour, one for black and white and a spare for the future because I dropped what was then my only Trip on some marble steps in Urbino a year or so back, and it was then that I realised how much I had come to rely on my Trip. I had my Leica M2 with me then, too, so I was able to continue to take photos, but the character of the images changed for the rest of the holiday; the M2 is slow to use, involves getting bits and pieces out (meter etc.), requires focusing and completely altered what I brought back. It's the spontaneous photograph that the Trip allows, and then, when one gets back home, the negs are all great as if one had taken a long time over getting it right.

Olympus Trip 35 | HP5 | Neat Perceptol

Olympus Trip 35 | Tri-X | HC-110

Sharp, instant, no barriers. See subject - take photo. And it will be correctly exposed and printable as long as the focus is good, and it soon becomes second nature to just be right.

Olympus Trip 35 | Tri-X | HC-110

There's also a perfectly handy way of forcing a picture to be taken even when the selenium cell meter says no. Roll the flash ring over to f2.8 and it'll force an exposure at 1/40th sec. It's up to you to determine if there's enough light in your subject to allow a non-flash exposure to happen, but just give it a go - why not? In this example above the outside conditions were

d-a-r-k dark and the red flag was popping, but the interior of the shop looked to me like there'd be something there, so I took the photo and am glad I did. It's my tribute to Hopper's "Nighthawks"!

There's a lot more to this Trip life that I'll get around to - ways of kidding the meter, how wonderfully sharp the negs can be. More to come.